The First Dreamer
by wujy
Summary: For centuries, demigods and half-bloods have been the Gods' first line of defense against the Titans and monsters of Greek and Roman mythology. Now, a new force is rising in power, one that no one was prepared for, and believing in them only makes them stronger.
1. I Turn Down a Pastry

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Percy Jackson, nor do I own any rights to any properties of White Wolf, which occasionally turns up in this story. This goes for the entire story, so I won't be posting this disclaimer in every chapter.

Note from the Author: This work takes place a decade or so after the end of the current, unfinished series. A forewarning to fans of Rick's original works: Janus appears a number of times through much of my stories, but not as he appeared in the original books. I posit that either Riordan didn't do _any_ research about Janus at all, or simply ignored all of it, because his depiction is enormously inaccurate. *sigh* Also, though his new series isn't completely published yet, I just assume the good guys win and move on. ;)

Hope you enjoy, and as always, please review.

/-wujy

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1. I Turn Down a Pastry

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If you're reading this, I hope you're just a regular kid who thinks this is all make believe, but the truth is, you probably already know that the world around you is not always what it seems. You might be a Believer. You might be able to see through the Mists. You might even be a half-blood; there are so many of us now.

No matter what you are, though, I should warn you that you may learn things about the world around you that you wish you didn't know. Even if you already know there are things out there that regular people can't see. Even if your hobbies include sword fighting and Capture the Flag. Even if you've talked to gods and fought with titans.

Trust me. There is so much more you still don't understand.

I encourage you to walk away now if you've changed your mind, because once you know, there's no going back. Once you believe, your belief only make them stronger.

I hope you're up for it.

/-

My name is Maddie Porter, and I ran away from home when I was twelve years old.

I hadn't exactly planned to run away. It just sort of happened on accident. I was walking home from school one day and I just... kept going. I didn't know _where_ I was going, but just going seemed a lot more important that where I was headed or what I was going to do when I got there.

I didn't leave much behind me—just a crowded foster home and a steady D-minus in English—so I never felt too guilty about it, but if someone had told me where my unknowing feet were taking me, I might have tried harder to stick around and earn that coveted D-plus.

There are demigods all over, maybe including you, who have similar stories to mine, so I won't bore you with the details. I was a gangly, clumsy child with below average grades, a severe attention problem, and no real friends. What family I had changed all the time as kids were adopted or transferred, and I bounced around from home to home. I was even almost adopted a couple of times, but it just takes one ill-placed ant farm or near-fatal attempt at making pancakes to make a family reconsider.

Something changed on my twelfth birthday, though. I can't explain what happened, really, but I was standing on the playground after school, tugging my backpack over one shoulder. It was January in Florida, so it wasn't exactly cold, but the wind was sneaking under the collar of my jacket, throwing my hair every direction except back. I remember thinking that it would take a week to comb out all of the tangles when Angel, this adorable pipsqueak of a third-grader, hopped over the pavement toward me.

Angel and I lived in the same group home, though it was a miracle she hadn't been adopted, because she really looked like her name. She had short, curly blond hair and this heart-shaped face that still had a hint of baby fat and the shadows of freckles. Her cheeks had turned pink in the wind, but her curls were still perfect, bouncing around her face. She looked like one of those chubby babies with wings that shoot people in the butts with arrows and make them fall in love. Although, if someone shot me in the butt with an arrow, all it would make me is angry and more than a little confused.

"Maddieeeee!" she called, grinning and waving one short arm above her head to get my attention. "I know what today is!"

I couldn't help it; she was too darn cute. I smiled and said, "Um... Tuesday?"

"No! It's your birthday today!" she exclaimed, jumping directly in front of me. "Did you remember?_"_

"Oh, _that_," I said, nodding. "Yeah, I remembered."

"Do you think Mrs. Hollister got you anything?" she asked me, meaning our foster mother. "Do you think there'll be cake?"

I grinned. Angel was new to Mrs. Hollister's, so she didn't know. There wouldn't be any cake. There might be a cupcake with a single candle on it, if the aging matron remembered, but I could just as easily get the cupcake a week or a month after my birthday, or not at all. Mrs. Hollister meant well, but she was forgetful. Secretly, I hoped there was a cupcake waiting for me, though, even if she'd bought it a couple days early and it was stale. I'd even settle for a leftover doughnut, or one of those fast food pocket pies. I licked my lips. Nothing beats a baked good.

I ruffled Angel's hair and her curls sprang back into shape like I'd never touched her. "Yeah, maybe," I said, taking her hand. "Let's go see."

It happened before we'd even crossed the length of the playground, and if you're a half-blood, here's where my story is different from yours. When you dropped your life and left everything you knew, you probably fought your way out. Odds are, you had to slay a fury, or defeat a Nemean lion. You blew out a cafeteria wall or destroyed a few lockers and the one, good vending machine. For me, it was something so small, so insignificant, I'm sure Angel didn't even notice it. Any other day, I wouldn't have noticed it either.

The wind shifted.

It was subtle, but unmistakable, and it took my breath with it. I stumbled and dropped Angel's hand, taking a half step in the direction the wind was blowing. I closed my eyes for a moment and stood perfectly still. I took a deep, steadying breath, paralyzed by an urge stronger than any feeling I'd ever felt before. Suddenly, my hair wasn't whipping around wildly anymore. Suddenly, every cell in my body wanted to move; I wanted to walk and never stop.

I must have been standing there for a while, because Angel's voice was small and worried when it reached me.

"Maddie?"

She was tugging on my sleeve when I looked down, but I hadn't even noticed until she'd said something. Her little, innocent face was looking at me with wide eyes, but she smiled when I did.

"Sorry, kid," I said, even though I was only a few years older than she was. "I just remembered that I forgot my Social Studies book," I lied. "You can get yourself home without me, right?"

"I'll wait for you," she said, raising up to her tiptoes and then rolling back onto the balls of her feet.

I shook my head. "Oh, no," I said. "You have to get back home before the other kids and make sure to save me a piece of that cake, okay?"

She seemed to like that answer, because she smiled. I kissed her on the forehead lightly and walked back toward the school.

"Yeah!" she shouted. "I'll save you some cake!" It was decided.

I glanced back at her over my shoulder and she looked so happy that I felt sick to my stomach for lying to her like that. She waved good-bye to me with her whole arm, throwing it back and forth before heading off, bouncing on her right foot with every step. I was sad to see her go, because part of me knew I was never going to see her again, but I turned my face back into the wind and the world lined up once more.

That's when I started walking. And I never stopped.


	2. I Cover a Stranger in Peanut Butter

Author's Note: I was asked why I was unhappy with Riordan's portrayal of Janus. It's a bit lengthy, so I expanded at the bottom of this chapter for anyone who cares to know. (It's long a rant-y, so feel free to ignore it, too.) Please enjoy chapter two, and as always, please review.

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2. I Cover a Stranger in Peanut Butter

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Dressed in leaves as she was, I might never have seen the funny girl in the tree, but when someone chucks a handful of acorns at your head, you tend to notice. Rubbing the back of my head, I looked up into the tree above me and saw a pair of angry eyes peering down at me. Her camouflage was so complete, that at first, I thought the eyes belonged to the tree, but after a moment, I saw the rest of her face. A second too late, I saw the hand, flinging more acorns, and caught most of them with my face.

I ducked and covered my head with my arms, shouting, "What are you doing?! Are you crazy?"

"Get away from my tree!" she yelled back. "I am the guardian spirit of this oak!"

More acorns bounced off my back and arms, and I was getting frustrated.

"What are you talking about? Ouch! You're not a spirit, you're just a girl! Ow! And... And that's not even an oak tree!"

I braced myself for more acorns, but there were none. Maybe she had run out. A soft thud of feet hitting grass came from nearby, and I peeked from between my arms, getting my first good look at her. She was a wispy little thing with thin, black hair halfway down her back. She was wearing what appeared to be a pile of vines and leaves sewn into a filmy material that moved like water over her skin, and she was looking at me, confused.

"What do you mean, 'it's not an oak tree'?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.

I lowered my arms slowly, ready to protect myself if she decided to pelt me with something else. Her ceasefire seemed genuine, though, so I pointed to the tree she had jumped down from.

"It's... It's a maple tree," I said slowly. "You can tell by the shape of the leaves."

She looked up at the leaves, but it was obvious that she didn't know the difference between oak and maple leaves. She turned back to me and her face was red and angry. She stamped her foot hard and demanded, "What do you _mean_ it's a maple tree!"

I readied myself for another barrage of acorns, but she turned on her heel to face the tree, raising an accusing finger. "You _told_ me you were an _oak tree_!" she shouted at it. "You trees think you're _so_ funny. You think you're _hilarious_, but you're _not_."

When she started making a hissing noise that sounded quite like rustling leaves, I started to inch away, trying not to draw attention to myself. I watched as she walked up to the tree trunk and poked it hard with one finger. "You're just _mean_!"

Above her, a branch shook heavily and something clear and sticky, the size of a baseball, dropped out of the leaves and landed on her head. She gasped and flinched, but the raw sap was already dripping down her forehead and into her eyes. She fanned her hands frantically, surprised and horrified.

_"Why?!"_ she shrieked at the tree. _"Why_ would you _do_ that?"

I froze, watching, as the leaves of the tree shook vigorously. The girl shook her head and sat down hard on the ground. "I am _so_," she protested as though someone had accused of not being... something. She followed it up by making more rustling noises of her own. "Why don't you _believe_ me?" she asked, trying to scrape the sap out of her hair and eyes. After a moment of fruitless tugging, she gave up and just started crying.

I watched for just a moment before making my decision. I approached her carefully and knelt down next to her.

"Hold still, okay?" I said, tugging a maple leaf from her dress. I turned it vein-side down and very carefully scraped the sap off her forehead, and did my best to get all of it out of her eyes. This close, I could tell she was about my age, but she was too pale to have grown up in Florida. She was shaking with sobs, but didn't stop me from what I was doing.

"This isn't working very well," I said, the leaf tearing in my hands and sticking to her in bits and pieces. "This is going to be a little gross, but it should do the trick," I continued, opening my backpack and removing a plastic baggie with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in it. I took the sandwich from the bag and pulled the bread apart, scraping as much of the jelly onto the grass as possible. When I had mostly peanut butter, I started smearing it across the sap on her head.

She shrieked and sobbed harder when I spread the peanut butter over her hair and face, but the oils in it started to do the trick and I was able to wipe most of the sap off her skin. When her eyes were clear, she opened them and looked at me, eyes shining with tears. She sniffed and swiped at her nose with the back of one hand while I tried to work on her hair, but I only managed to get most of it off the surface.

She winced as I pulled on the sap and tried to comb through her hair with my fingers, and I stopped when it became clear that the peanut butter of my uneaten lunch wasn't quite enough to get everything out. Using the sleeve of my shirt, I wiped as much of the peanut butter off as I could, and sat down across from her.

"I think that's as good as it gets until you get home and take a shower," I told her. "You'll need water as hot as you can stand it and a fine-tooth comb to get it all, and you'll want to get to it soon, before it sets."

Instead of getting up to leave like I expected her to do, she just tried her best to run her fingers through the sap and stared at me. I cleared my throat and looked back at her, wondering what to do. My feet were longing to get back on the road, but something else was holding me back. I was about to cut my losses and leave, when she finally spoke.

"Why?"

The question was so broad that I wasn't sure how to answer, but I tried. "Uh, why...?"

"Why are you helping me?" she asked, looking almost cross.

I sighed and shrugged. It wasn't a question I was expecting. "I... don't know," I said. "I just... You looked like you needed help, and I was here, so... That's it."

There was more silence while she processed my answer.

"I threw acorns at you," she said, now sounding a little confused.

I laughed and rubbed the back of my head where the acorns had hit me, and she gave the barest of smiles.

"Yeah, you did," I said, grinning. "I'm... not really sure what that was about, but it seems like the tree wasn't very appreciative of your, uh, _guardianship._"

This seemed to set her talking. "I _know_, right?" she asked. "It's like, I was up sitting in the tree to protect it from poachers, or tree-cutters, or whatever, and all I get is attitu—"

She stopped abruptly in the middle of her tirade and looked at me suspiciously. "How did you...? What are you?"

"I—"

I was so startled by the question that I had no idea how to answer it. I sputtered for a moment, trying to find something intelligent to say, but she interrupted me by suddenly leaning forward until her face was inches from mine and poking at me curiously with both hands. She tugged at my cheeks painfully and then tugged my eyelids up as though looking for something specific on the tops of my eyeballs. She only had a moment's examination before I jerked back, falling onto my elbows on the ground.

"Wh-What are you doing?" I asked, alarmed.

"Are you a demigod? Can you see through the Mists?"

"I don't _kn-know_," I said indignantly. "What are _you_?" I demanded lamely, turning her question around on her.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm a dryad, _obviously_," she said, tugging on her clothes. "Ageless_ tree guardian_ ring a bell?" she asked, like I was stupid. It was a tone teachers and classmates alike had used on me, and it only made me angry.

"No," I said, "it doesn't, you lunatic, and this is a _public park_. This tree doesn't need to be protected from poachers, or whatever. It's already protected here."

"You saw the tree! You _heard_ it!" she said, ignoring my attempt at an insult and moving closer. "You can see the truth! How do you do it?"

I opened my mouth to tell her again how crazy she was, but a blinding flash of light over her shoulder caught my eyes and I threw an arm across my face. "What the—?"

"I _knew it_!" the girl—dryad?—exclaimed. When I looked up, she was sitting back on her heels, pointing to a floating light over my head. When the spots had cleared from my vision, I made out the shape of a key crossed by a long stick or something glowing bright and white, rotating in midair. I gaped at what I was seeing, but the hologram slowly faded and disappeared.

"What... What was...?"

"You've been claimed," the girl said.

"Claimed? Claimed by what?"

"Your godly parent, _duh,"_ she said, still nursing her fingers through her hair, but apparently no longer interested in poking and pulling at my face.

"P-Parent?" I asked, still processing. "I don't _have_ any parents."

She shrugged. "Well, you do now. One, at least. That was definitely the symbol of a god claiming his kid. I've seen it a hundred times before, back home."

I frowned. Her know-it-all attitude was getting on my nerves. "Well, then, smartypants, who is it?"

"How should I know?" she retorted. "There are only like a _hundred_ of them. You're really barking up the wrong tree," she said, and then burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing anyone had every said. She doubled over, holding her stomach.

Finally, I had had enough. I stood up, zipped my backpack up in a huff and threw it over one shoulder.

"Hey," she said, her laughter stopping immediately. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going away from here," I said. I was tired of whatever games were going on here. "This is crazy. _You're_ crazy. I don't know how you did the thing with the glowing lights, but I don't think it's fun, and I'm tired of being made fun _of."_

She stood up, looking like her feelings were hurt. "I wasn't making fun of you," she said. "You're just about the most exciting thing that's happened in this park since I got here."

The maple rustled its protest at the statement, but I did my best to ignore it.

"And I didn't have anything to do with the fireworks, promise. And, you can just shut it," she added to the tree.

More rustling.

"What do I look like, some sort of weird... light... producing _thing_?" she asked, wiggling her fingers at me to show she wasn't holding anything. "No, I'm a tree spirit."

As the rustling grew more insistent, she turned furiously to the tree and spat, "Do you mind much? I am _trying_ to have a conversation with an actual _person... _here..."

I squinted at her back when her voice jumped an entire octave in pitch and came to a crashing halt. "Hey, are you okay?"

She took two steps back so she was standing next to me, her eyes transfixed on something in the tree. "I don't suppose you're the kid of some kind of fight-y god, are you?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"What?" I asked at the sudden change in topic. "Why?"

She stepped behind me an instant later, ducking down. "Because now would be a really good time for some fight-y!"

She pointed over my shoulder into the trees and I glanced up. "What are you p-p-p—!"

When I saw what she was pointing at, the breath left me. Glaring down at us, the entire length of it's thirty-foot body wrapped around a heavy tree branch and part of the trunk, was an inky black snake as big around as I was.

"O-Oh."

/-

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Expanded Author's Note:

The short answer is: Google Janus.

The long answer? Well, again, it's a bit... _long_. (And a little impassioned. Forgive me. XD)

Believe what you will, but my personal belief structure is somewhat _eclectic_. A Christian base, Buddhist meditation, Wiccan ritual structure, framed in Paganism and led by animal totemism. Janus, as a concept, is also a central figure in my system. He is the god of doorways and pathways. Of beginnings, transitions, and endings. He is the god of movement and journeys and choices. He sees the past and the future simultaneously. Traditionally, because he was the god of beginnings, it was necessary to invoke him before invoking any other god. He's widely believed to be one of the most important deities in Roman culture.

In Riordan's books, Janus appears briefly, and in the wrong mythos. Of course, the fact that he's strictly a Roman god in the Greek series doesn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that he appears as a sort of sideshow, with split personalities (neither of which appear to be intelligent), without any bearing on the appropriate timing of vital choices, who quakes at Hera's feet and makes a general, useless fool of himself. It's actually almost insulting.

Forgive my tirade, but in all fairness, it _is_ why I put this _after_ the chapter and not before. ;)

Love and candies,

/-wujy


	3. I Meet the God of B-Grade Movies

3. I Meet the God of B-Grade Movies

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For a fraction of a second, I couldn't move or think or breathe. I gaped at the monstrosity, the dryad quaking behind me like I could protect her. I felt like I was _supposed_ to protect her somehow, but the problem was that I had no idea what I could do to help. The world fell into slow motion, the snake tasting us on the air with its pink tongue as long as my forearm. I was frozen, stuck in time.

_MOVE!_

All at once, a voice screamed in my head, and the world snapped back into real time. My feet knew what to do even if the rest of me was trying to figure out how a snake so enormous had managed to evade my notice until it had been pointed out to me. My hand found the girl's easily, and I turned on my heels and ran as hard and fast as my legs would take me, dragging her along behind me. She resisted at first, but she was surprisingly light and picked up the speed after a moment of shock.

_Left._

I didn't even think about where the advice was coming from. I skipped to the left as quickly as I could. Next to us, where we had been running just before, a tree exploded into a shower of splinters. The dryad shrieked, but I kept pulling her forward so as to not lose ground. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the snake moving quickly out of the wreckage of the tree it had just demolished.

If we could just get out of the park. If we could just get to a house or a car. Somewhere with people who could deal with a giant snake running around loose.

_Straight on. Keep moving!_

The voice urged me forward and I plunged ahead, ripping my gaze from the snake, which was recuperating quickly. I was still holding onto the tree girl, but I wasn't pulling her anymore. She'd picked up her speed and was running full tilt beside m, clutching to my hand desperately. We didn't encounter a single living soul until we reached the edge of the park, which was fortunate, because I was still trying to work out an explanation of the situation for myself. I didn't think I'd be able to explain it to anyone else.

We burst out of the trees onto a sidewalk, heavily populated, before a busy intersection. I looked back and saw the brush shaking ominously behind us. I took the only action that made any sense to me.

"Run!" I screamed at the people on the sidewalk. I waved my arms frantically at the trees, where the snake would come from any moment. "There's... _something _loose in the park! A snake, or something, and it's _huge_!"

A couple holding hands walked past, ignoring me completely, but throwing my leaf-clad companion strange looks. A woman with a large, magenta purse swung it at my head, muttering something about ruffians and troublemakers. All the while, my new hippie friend was trying to push me away from the park with all of her willowy strength.

"We have... to move..." she said between deep breaths as she threw her slight weight into shoving me across the street. "They won't... eve _see_. They _can't_!"

"It's a giant snake," I said. "It's sort of hard to miss."

"I'll explain... later. Just... _move_!"

I shifted my weight slightly onto my back foot, accidentally sending us both off balance. We toppled to the ground together just as a gigantic, black-scaled body soared over us and into the intersection.

Horns blared and breaks squealed as cars swerved to miss it, only to slide into one another. I was back on my feet in the next instant, pulling the girl with me, and I didn't argue with her this time.

"We have to call someone," I said as we ran. "The police. Animal Control. A zoo. Something!"

"They can't do anything against _that_," she said back.

"What... _is_ it?" I panted.

She only shook her head, which didn't make me feel any better about the situation. I could hear terrified shrieks behind me, and then the rough slither of scale on pavement. I knew instinctively that, for whatever reason, the thing was ignoring everyone else and following only us. Taking some small comfort in that fact that, while my own life was on the line, I wasn't leaving behind helpless people to become snake food, I concentrated only on running and trying to find a safe place to hide.

The voice in my head was telling me to get indoors as fast as I could, and with no better guidance, I led the girl down the street, looking for a building whose storefront wasn't made of glass. Finally, across the street, I spotted a brick-faced shop with a heavy, wooden door shielding the entrance, a small window in the top panel with a glowing 'Open' sign. The broken neon above the door declared that it was "Merv's P wn S op."

Over my shoulder, I could see the snake picking up speed, spitting angrily as it pursued us. Putting on a final burst of adrenaline, that tugged at the muscles in my legs and set my lungs burning, I dragged my running companion through the backed up traffic and to the pawn shop. I wrenched open the door and, more roughly than I'd intended, shoved her through.

I turned to take a final look at the snake and, seeing my impending escape, the muscles along its sides rippled as it used its entire body to spring forward after us. In the next second, I had the door closed and was ducking behind it, waiting for the impact that would no doubt send the door flying off its hinges at any second. I closed my eyes and braced myself.

I waited for a lifetime, but the door stayed firmly where it was and didn't so much as rattle. There was no impact at all. I pushed my ear against the door, but heard nothing, not even the sound of the angry cursing and honking, or screaming from the drivers outside.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the door in front of me, but it didn't look anything like it had from the outside. It was painted white, for one, and the knob was all silver and crystal. The "Open" sign in the window was gone and, for that matter, the window, too! This was definitely not the door to a seedy pawn shop, and it was entirely too well lit in this room.

I had expected dim lighting at best, good for hiding crucial flaws in things until after they'd been purchased and taken home. I turned around slowly, my danger senses pinging wildly, and what I saw confirmed that I was not in a shady pawn shop in downtown Crawfordville, Florida.

I was sitting in a completely empty room, spotless and white, on a plain tile floor next to the strange girl from the park, and she was staring at me with wide eyes.

"What did you _do_?" she asked in a harsh whisper.

I started to tell her that I hadn't done anything, but had no idea whether that was true or not, so I stopped. In lieu of any intelligent response, I looked around slowly. The room had only one exit, which was a corridor of the same color that bent to the right after about ten feet, though where it could possibly lead, I had no idea. The pawn shop we had entered was a hole-in-the-wall, and this hallway was too long to be in it. I turned back to her and shrugged.

"I'm... Maddie," I said, finding it suddenly silly that I didn't know her name and she didn't know mine. It seemed to me that once you'd survived certain death together, you should be on a first name basis with a person.

She seemed a little confused at first, hesitant, but eventually said, "C-Carthy."

I reached out to shake her hand, which only seemed polite, but flinched when a man's voice call out from down the hall and around the corner.

"If you'd both like to come 'round to the viewing room, I think you'll find it more comfortable." The voice sounded polite and curt—businesslike.

I looked at Carthy and she looked back, both of us confused and more than a little afraid. We both stood and—out of habit, I suppose—linked hands and walked down the pristine corridor. Just around the corner, the hall opened into a large room that was just as plain white as the rest, but not as empty.

Two of the walls were lined with TVs, dozens of them, all showing something different. Along one walls, I saw an empty field of perfectly golden wheat waving in the breeze. There was a family sitting down to dinner. A futuristic movie of a moon colony.

On the opposite wall, a TV showed rain falling on an unmarked gravestone. Another was focused on a lone woman sitting on a porch swing with her knees to her chest. One was playing some sort of gory Civil War movie

In front of each wall, hooked up to its respective set of TVs, was a console with hundreds of buttons and multicolored lights, and at each console was a set of overlarge, noise-cancelling headphones and a chair. One chair was occupied.

The man wearing the headphones was wearing an impeccable three-piece, pinstriped suit, though the pinstripes were mildly redundant since he was at least six feet tall and quite gangly, but it suited him at the same time. He had short-cropped gray hair, neatly parted and swept back. His lips were thin and looked chapped and his nose was slightly crooked on one side, like it had been broken.

His intensely blue eyes seemed so sad, and they were focused heavily on a screen that was showing some sort of end-of-the-world movie where the Empire State building was in ruins, and much of New York was in darkness or on fire. Carthy and I stood perfectly still, waiting for him to speak, but he didn't. His screen changed to Los Angeles, which was mostly under water, and places in Florida that I barely recognized for the sun scorch that had all but turned it into a desert.

Rapidly, the screen flipped through places from around the world in various states of destruction, and for some reason, I couldn't look away.

The Great Barrier Reef was a tangled jungle of caverns and dead, petrified coral, looming dark and dangerous over an empty ocean bed where nothing could live. There was an aerial view of an island where thirty volcanoes were erupting all at the same time. The Leaning Tower, crumbled. The Sphinx, beheaded.

And then the TV started to show _really_ weird things.

Niagara Falls, churning a dark red liquid over the cliff instead of water. The Eiffel Tower, painted an ominous shade of red and wrapped with what looked like razor wire. The Taj Mahal, all color leached away, under cover of night, with ghostly pale figures floating aimlessly across the grounds.

The man tapped on the screen with a long, bony finger, startling me out of my trance. He frowned and shook his head.

"Still the same," he commented vaguely to no one in particular before turning to Carthy and me. He removed his headphones and smiled, but the smile was shallow and didn't touch the sadness in his eyes.

"Listen, Mr., uh... _Merv_," I said, uncomfortable, "We didn't mean to walk in on... whatever it is you're doing here, but we're sorry for bothering you and we'll be going if you'd kindly show us the back way out?"

He chuckled slightly. "Forgive my manners," he said, waving a hand. "You should have a seat."

I started to ask where he expected us to sit, when two straight-backed chairs appeared out of nowhere. My mouth fell open and I rubbed my eyes hard, sure they were playing tricks on me. Carthy didn't seem surprised at all, however, and all but collapsed into one of the chairs. I sat down next to her, not sure what else to do. I hadn't known her for very long, but I was feeling very protective; I didn't want to leave her with some maniac.

"Listen, I know this sounds crazy," I started, "but there's a giant snake at your door ready to wrap us into burritos and eat us whole, so you'd really be doing yourself and us a favor by showing us out the back."

He waved his hand dismissively. "The door you exited is not the door you entered, child. That beast is nowhere near here."

"What do you mean, 'not the same door'?" I asked. "How did I go through one door and come out another?"

"All things in their time," he replied. "We have other matters to discuss first."

I shook my head. "No," I said. "All things in _this_ time. How do you even know about the snake if you've been in here this whole time. Where are we, if we're not in Crawfordville? And what do you expect to do about the fact that there's a monster running around Florida, causing car crashes and eating kids in the park?!" I was panting when I was done, and on my feet, angry.

He stared at me calmly, blankly, and after a few moments under his easy gaze, I felt a little silly, even though I had every right to be mad. I sat down stiffly, meeting his eyes with a glare that I hoped was determined and not pertinent, but he only sighed and shrugged.

"Very well," he said. He turned to his console and pressed a blue button. All of the red lights on the console lit up at once and every TV screen changed to the same channel. It was the Crawfordville news station, and the field agent was recapping what had happened at the intersection. I gripped the edges of my seat with both hands and waited to hear the worst.

"This is the place where two hours ago, a massive car accident occurred, leading to a delay in traffic that cleared up only recently."

"Two hours!" I yelled. "We've only been here for two _minutes_!"

He shushed me and pointed to the screens.

"No major injuries have been reported, but two drivers have been hospitalized for minor concussions. The accident was caused when a city bus careened into this busy intersection at top speed. No cars impacted the bus directly, and instead swerved into each other, allowing the bus to vanish from the scene without any clue as to who was driving."

My mouth was hanging open. _A bus! A bus!?_

"Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the pile-up, but sources say that camera footage from the traffic cams in the area hasn't been clear enough to get a better description of the bus, or a license plate."

"What!? That's because there _was no _driver! There was no bus! It was a giant, scaly, angry snake that tried to _eat me_!" I covered my ears with my hands, unable to believe what I was hearing. The man turned the screens back to their previous channels and the news stopped.

"That monster was sent after you, girl," he said. "It wasn't there for anyone else, and once you were gone, it went straight back to whoever sent it."

I groaned; my head hurt. "Why would anyone do that, though?" I asked. "I've never done anything bad to anyone before." I cringed momentarily. "Not on purpose, anyway," I added. I could think of a foster parent or two who might have grounded me for a year, but no one who would do this.

He shook his head. "It's not because of something you've done or haven't done," he said. "It's because of what you are."

"A demigod," Carthy whispered next to me, and I remembered what she had said in the park. I _did_ seem like hours ago, even though I knew it had only been minutes since our conversation.

The man nodded. "I brought you here," he said, "because you didn't know how to save yourself. Strictly speaking, I'm very hands-off when it comes to mortal affairs, but you haven't even been given a chance to train. I had hoped that I was wrong and that your ignorance of our world might let you reach New Rome before they sensed your presence, but then, I was always a fool for hope. Even when I know precisely what's going to happen, I still try to change it."

He looked back to the monitor, which was showing the Grand Canyon, a river of lava bubbling at it's base, and shook his head. "For all my interfering..." he started, then stopped. "Anyway," he said, "I couldn't leave you to the snake, so I lent you a small bit of guidance and brought you here."

I looked up at him, not sure what to say. I felt a tickle somewhere around my heart, but I shoved it away. "And what... are you going to do with me" I asked, "now that you have me?"

He smiled and the barest hint of gentleness touched his sorrowful eyes. "I'm going to open a door," he said, standing. He moved out of the room and down the hallway toward where we had entered. I glanced at Carthy quickly, but she shrugged and followed him. I rolled my eyes, but did the same.

In the empty room with the single door, the man stood with his hand on the crystal knob. I walked over to him and he knelt in front of me to speak to me at eye-level. He handed me a sealed envelope and I tucked it into my jacket. "On the other side of this door," he said, "is a place called New Rome. There, you'll meet a woman called Serafin. Find her, and give her the envelope."

"I don't understand."

"You will," he said, "soon."

He opened the door, and there was nothing on the other side except for a faint, white light trickling in. Carthy squeezed my shoulder and stepped through, disappearing after a few steps, and I moved to follow her. I took my first step out the door and stopped, turning back to him.

"Who _are_ you?" I asked.

He smiled, and this time it was almost happy. "My name is Janus," he said. "And I am your father."

Then, he closed the door, and I was swept back by some invisible force, so quickly it made my head spin. My last thought as I lost consciousness was that I did have a father after all.


End file.
